What is the UK Constitution?

Constitutions organise, distribute and
regulate state power. They set out the structure of the state, the major state
institutions, and the principles governing their relations with each other and
with the state’s citizens. Britain
is unusual in that it has an ‘unwritten’ constitution: unlike the great
majority of countries there is no single legal document which sets out in one
place the fundamental laws outlining how the state works. Britain’s lack of a ‘written’ constitution can be
explained by its history. In other countries, many of whom have experienced
revolution or regime change, it has been necessary to start from scratch or begin from first principles, constructing
new state institutions and defining in detail their relations with each other
and their citizens. By contrast, the British Constitution has evolved over a long
period of time, reflecting the relative stability of the British polity. It has never been thought necessary to consolidate the basic
building blocks of this order in Britain. What Britain
has instead is an accumulation of various statutes, conventions, judicial decisions and treaties
which collectively can be referred to as the British Constitution. It is thus
more accurate to refer to Britain’s
constitution as an ‘uncodified’ constitution, rather than an ‘unwritten’ one.

It has been suggested that the British Constitution can be summed up in
eight words: What the Queen in Parliament enacts is law. This means
that Parliament, using the power of the Crown,
enacts law which no other body can challenge. Parliamentary sovereignty
is commonly regarded as the defining principle of the British
Constitution. This is the ultimate lawmaking power vested in a
democratically elected Parliament to create or abolish any law. Other
core principles of the British Constitution are often thought to include
the rule of law, the separation of government into executive,
legislative, and judicial branches, and the existence of a unitary
state, meaning ultimate power is held by ‘the centre’ – the sovereign
Westminster Parliament. However, some of these principles are mythical
(the British constitution may be better understood as involving the
fusion of executive and legislature) or in doubt (Parliamentary
sovereignty may now be called in question given the combined impact of Europe, devolution, the Courts, and human rights).

The British Constitution is derived from a
number of sources. Statutes are laws passed by Parliament and are
generally the highest form of law. Conventions are unwritten practices
which have developed over time and regulate the business of governing. Common
law is law developed by the courts and judges through cases. The UK’s
accession to the European
Communities Act 1972 has meant that European law is increasingly
impacting on the British Constitution. The UK is also subject to international
law. Finally, because the British Constitution cannot be found in any
single document, politicians and lawyers have relied on constitutional
authorities to locate and understand the constitution.

An uncodified constitution creates two
problems. First, it makes it difficult to know what the state of the
constitution actually is. Second, it suggests that it is easier to make changes
to the UK Constitution than in countries with written constitutions, because
the latter have documents with a ‘higher law’ status against which ordinary
statute law and government action can be tested, and are only amendable via
elaborate procedures. The flexibility of the UK constitution is evident from
the large number of constitutional reforms since 1997, including the abolition
of the majority of hereditary peers in the House
of Lords, the introduction of codified rights of individuals for the the
first time in the Human Rights
Act 1998, and devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Arguably, however, these recent constitutional reforms
may have made the constitution less flexible in some respects: it is debatable,
for instance, whether the devolution settlements
could ever be repealed.

For an overview of
the UK
system of government visit Directgov. The UK Cabinet Manual also provides an outline of British government, albeit from the Executive's point of view.